Gabriel's Promise (Gabriel's Inferno 4)

Nicholas had surveyed the inventory Gabriel had sent him and agreed that the Cézanne and the Thomson were the two works most likely to attract interest from collectors. Nicholas seemed to think that art heists, even in private homes, were more common than one thought.

He’d discussed the memento mori with his contact at Interpol and shared both the photograph of the object and the sketch artist’s image of the perpetrator. Unfortunately, the object didn’t appear in Interpol’s database of stolen art.

Using facial recognition software, the sketch was compared with images in Interpol’s criminal database. There wasn’t a match.

Thus, Gabriel was dealing with a professional art thief who had yet to capture the attention of Interpol and who had left behind what might be a museum-quality sculpted object that hadn’t been reported stolen. It was all very puzzling, even for Professor Emerson. And the more he puzzled over the invasion of his home, the more distracted he became.

He hadn’t expected to work on his Sage Lectures during the Christmas holidays, but he’d been reading Dante and his commentators on a daily basis. Since the break-in, Gabriel had found it difficult to concentrate.

The words on his computer screen taunted him,

“Nel ciel che più de la sua luce prende

fu’ io, e vidi cose che ridire

é sa né può chi di là sù discende;

“perché appressando sé al suo disire,

nostro intelletto si profonda tanto,

che dietro la memoria non può ire.

“Within that heaven which most his light receives

Was I, and things beheld which to repeat

Nor knows, nor can, who from above descends;

“Because in drawing near to its desire

Our intellect ingulphs itself so far,

That after it the memory cannot go.”

So Dante wrote in the first canto of Paradiso, imagining Beatrice at his side. So Gabriel, in attempting to pen a lecture fit for a world audience, was struggling.

When Dante was scolded by Beatrice near the end of Purgatorio, the narrative shifted. Theology structured the entire Divine Comedy but it became, perhaps, far more confrontational when presenting the purpose of humankind and the nature of God and his governance.

In Purgatorio, Beatrice told Dante that his desire for her was supposed to direct him to the highest good, which was God. So what was at one point a story of romantic, courtly love became a story of the love one should have for God. And as the relationship between Dante and God was transformed, so the relationship between Dante and Beatrice was transformed. Or so Gabriel thought.

Gabriel knew his interpretation could be textually and historically supported. But he wondered how the audience in Scotland would respond. Despite his cross-appointment in the Department of Religion at Boston University, Gabriel was not a theologian. And unlike Dante, he was hesitant to venture into such subjects.

But here he was, awake on Christmas Eve, pondering the vagaries of love, devotion, and salvation, all while those he loved most lay fast asleep.

Whatever promises Dante had made to Beatrice, he’d fallen short of those commitments after her death. Gabriel, too, had made promises; first, to his wife, and second, to his child.

Ho

w could he leave them in Massachusetts while he moved to Scotland? Someone had invaded their home, touched their things, and potentially left behind a threat. He could no more leave his wife and child unprotected than he could willingly tear out his heart.

In a flash, his fingers flew across the keyboard,

Dear University Council Members of the University of Edinburgh,

While I am grateful for your generous invitation for me to deliver the Sage Lectures in 2014, I regret I must decline. If there would be a possibility to reschedule the lectures to a later date, I would be most grateful.

I apologize for declining at this juncture and under these circumstances. However, I find my home and my family under threat and so I cannot in good conscience relocate to Scotland for the 2013–2014 academic year.